Queens will take off, prices will cool in 2016: StreetEasy

As 2015 draws to a close, listings portal StreetEasy pulled out its crystal ball to predict what New York City’s housing market will look like next year.

Among its prognostications: Price growth will slow, Queens will be hot and luxury (prices) will not.According to StreetEasy, the median sale price next year will rise 2.2 percent to $622,769, down from the 5.7 percent growth this year. Median rents will increase 3.2 percent to $3,055, down from 4.2 percent growth in 2015.

“The market has clearly slowed down from the feverish rate of growth we saw during the housing boom,” said Alan Lightfeldt, StreetEasy’s data scientist.

Overall, buyers seeking more affordable housing options will also make Upper Manhattan — which includes Central Harlem, Hudson Heights and Inwood — a competitive submarket. StreetEasy predicts the sale prices there will rise 10.2 percent to $683,428 in 2016 — four times the growth rate for the rest of the city.

StreetEasy said Jamaica would emerge as the hottest neighborhood, followed by Coney Island, Pelham Parkway, Jamaica Estates and Woodside. The prediction is based on each neighborhood’s annual change in sale price, rent price, population growth and change in StreetEasy page views per listing.

StreetEasy echoed the sentiment of developers who’ve recently said the upper echelons in the luxury market are softening.

“Manhattan’s luxury market saw dramatic growth throughout 2014 as developers rushed to meet exploding global and investor demand for premium real estate,” Lightfeldt said. “That demand appears to have been fully satiated this year and prices began to fall in February. We expect Manhattan’s priciest real estate to see further price declines next year.”